Trump Administration Opens Investigation Into ABC’s ‘The View’: Report

Screenshot via ABC

The Federal Communications Commission has opened an investigation into The View on ABC, according to a report published by Fox News Digital on Friday.

“Fake news is not getting a free pass anymore,” a source told Fox News.

The source said the probe relies on the rarely-enforced equal-time rule, which was enacted into law in 1934 to prevent broadcast stations from offering politically one-sided programming. In January, the FCC announced it would give guidance to ABC, CBS, and NBC on how to adhere to the Communications Act of 1934.

“Under section 315, if a broadcast station permits any legally qualified candidate for public office to use its facilities, it shall provide an equal opportunity to all other legally qualified candidates for that office,” the FCC said in a statement last month. The statement specifically said the FCC was concerned with networks’ “airing of late night and daytime talk shows.”

Currently hosted by Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Alyssa Farah, Sarah Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro, The View has long been an object of scorn for conservatives.

Fox News reported:

A source at the FCC told Fox News Digital that Monday’s “View” appearance by Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico triggered the probe.

Talarico was among the first political candidates to appear on “The View” since the FCC announced its crackdown.

There has been a longstanding “bona fide” exception for news programming that wouldn’t require equal time for an opposing candidate, but the FCC now says it “has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late-night or daytime television talk show program on the air presently would qualify for the ‘bona fide’ news exemption.”

ABC’s parent company, Disney, never made an equal-time filing to the FCC regarding Talarico’s recent appearance, which would implicitly indicate to the FCC that Disney believes “The View” is bona fide news and would be exempt from the policy, the source said.

Last month, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, whose show ends in May, are of particular interest to him.

“If Kimmel or Colbert want to continue to do their programming” as they are, Carr said, “they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming service.”

Anna Gomez, an FCC commissioner, blasted the investigation in a statement to Mediaite:

Let’s be clear on what this is. This is government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation. Like many other so-called ‘investigations’ before it, the FCC will announce an investigation but never carry one out, reach a conclusion, or take any meaningful action.

The real purpose is to weaponize the FCC’s regulatory authority to intimidate perceived critics of this Administration and chill protected speech. That is not how a free society operates.

The First Amendment protects the right of daytime and late-night programs to cover newsworthy issues and express viewpoints without government interference. I urge broadcasters and their parent networks to stand strong against these unfounded attacks and continue exercising their constitutional rights without fear or favor.

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